To Want
by hulklinging
Summary: Moritz doesn't move, until he moves all at once. Melchior makes flight look easy, and Moritz wants... He wants.


Moritz isn't even sure how he got up here, really.

One moment, he was stuck in bed, another day of being too afraid of himself to get up. Curled up in his blankets, knowing he needs to go to class, or to the hospital, but all he can think about is how fast people like to drive, how easy it would be to step in front of them. Even if he walked to class, he'd have to get over the bridge, and there's no way he can trust himself on a high ledge right now.

He wasn't planning anything. He wasn't. He'd just been... daydreaming. That's all. Closed his eyes in his room and opened them to a cold chill, and somehow he's found a way up to the roof of his building.

Shit. He promised Ilse he would call her if the hallucinations or sleepwalking started again. He'd promised. She is going to be so mad.

Moritz rubs at suddenly watering eyes, and tries to glance around to see how to get down. Because if he falls now, there's nothing stopping his friends from thinking he'd wanted it. And as much as he sits in his dark room, wrapped up in fantasies and fears, he doesn't want to die anymore. He's having a rough week, but he's been so much better lately.

Fuck. How had he gotten up here? the ledge is terribly thin, and the roof is a good eight feet below and behind him. In front of him, empty air all the way down. Sixteen stories of room to fall, nothing to catch him but the street below.

His breathing starts to speed up, and he tries to shuffle his feet, so he can face the roof, sit down. It throws him off balance, and for a terrifying moment his arms are pinwheeling as he desperately tries not to fall.

He regains his balance, but now he's too afraid to move. He's practically gasping for air, tears streaming from eyes he's too scared to close.

"Hey. Hey, don't move, okay?"

There's a voice coming from his left, which makes no sense, because there is nothing to his left. He turns his head, and thinks maybe this whole thing is a hallucination, some twisted nightmare. But the headless women who haunt him in the dreaming have not shown up, and the air is cold enough to burn his lungs, or maybe they're burning with the effort of drawing any air at all.

There's a boy next to him, some kind of angel maybe, with dark hair and wide eyes and nothing beneath his feet. He's flying, without even the visible impossibility of wings to aid him. He's got his hands up, like Moritz is armed and dangerous (he's not, he gave Ilse that gun and he told her to get rid of it and he hasn't seen it since). His voice seems at odds with the worry tied up in his body language, calm and quiet, like they're talking in a theatre, like he's whispering some special secret.

That's not what he's saying, though. What he's saying is "Careful, careful, let's get down and talk about this," which strikes Moritz as funny, because he doesn't know how to get down and he can't talk anyway, all his words are stuck in his throat, he's not getting any air and he's going to pass out and faint to his death, and that's really hilarious, just like his life, one big joke-

The flying boy gets closer, close enough to touch, but he doesn't quite yet. He locks eyes with Moritz instead, and Moritz isn't sure if he's focusing on the boy's face or if he's just losing the edges of his vision. Then the boy is grabbing onto his shoulders, and there's something in his face and his hands that makes Moritz feel completely safe.

Too safe, perhaps, because he relaxes, or perhaps he collapses. But either way, it's enough to send him falling forward. He takes his angel by surprise, because he's falling with him. It's not fair, he's not ready to go, and now he's taking someone else with him _it's not fair he's supposed to be in bed right now_

The air around him pops, and the impact comes faster than he is expecting. It's not the hard quick end of concrete, though. It's the strain of weak bedsprings, protesting the weight of two boys hitting it with more force than should be possible.

Moritz opens his eyes to be met with the familiar pattern of his quilt. Just a bad dream. Just a bad dream and a boy underneath him and his lungs still refusing to draw air.

It takes his angel a moment to realize they're no longer falling to their deaths. He's half under Moritz still, and when he lets go of his shoulders, Moritz wonders if his fingerprints are seared into his bones. If his eyes were closed, it would still feel like he was holding him, raising him up from some personal hell, perhaps.

There's a strange sound that he becomes aware of belatedly, something close, just past the ringing in his ears. Someone gasping for breath. _Oh._ Moritz rolls onto his side, curls into the fetal position. _That's coming from me._

And then he has those hands on him again, tentatively rubbing his back.

"Take a deep breath," he hums, and he really is whispering truths into his ear now, his tone almost musical. "That's it, breathe."

Moritz breathes, relishes in the fact that he can breathe. He's not sure how long it takes for him to calm down, but the whole time the hand on his back doesn't start moving, warms him from the outside in, the words blending together but the meaning coming through.

"What... happened?"

He's not really sure any of this is real, if he's honest. Maybe he already died, sometime in the night, and this is the heaven he has stumbled into, with an angel speaking soft words and being unafraid to touch.

"I don't know. I saw you on the roof and thought the worst. Do you remember climbing up there?"

Moritz shakes his head, closes his eyes to wrack his brain. It was just like coming back, just like falling, one moment here and another there.

"I was here, I was just... thinking. And then I was there." He uncurls, slowly, and there's this strange feeling of leaving something behind, whether he left it four stories up or it rubbed off like a second skin, now fated to gather dust at the edge of his bed. He looked death in the eye and looked away, different than Ilse grabbing his gun and begging him to stay. He'd done it himself, and if it had really happened then he'd brought this boy in with him.

Now that he's sitting up, and his angel is too, mirroring his position of crossed legs, their knees almost touching, Moritz can see the imperfections that make him look less divine. It's somehow more intimidating, makes the beauty of the boy something he can touch.

The boy licks his lips, like Moritz has somehow stolen his words, which is impossible, because Moritz is speechless too.

"You teleported," he says, sounding sure, and Moritz wonders where this whimsical being keeps it, that iron, that unmoving assurance in his own knowledge. "Accidental, the first time. Subconscious want."

Teleporting. Like they were some kind of superhero. Moritz lets his thoughts shift genres, remembers the news reports talking about powers like the newest celebrity scandal, teenagers putting on masks like it's just another pointless rebellion. Headlines comparing using powers to promiscuity, like some new STD. Looks at the being who is not an angel but not quite a boy either, sitting on his bed like he belongs.

"And the second time?"

He knows, be he wants to hear him say it, with his tongue that speaks truths, with iron weighing it down.

"Conscious want, I would assume."

He says want like it's not a dangerous thing, like wanting is something everyone is allowed to do. Moritz doesn't believe that. But maybe he could.

"I'm Melchior," says the boy.

"Moritz," he mumbles in response. Afraid to look at him, afraid to look away. Always afraid, always running, that's Moritz for you.

But Melchior is looking back at him. That's new. Moritz tries for a smile, and it only feels slightly foreign on his face.

"I should get going." Melchior swings his legs off the bed, stands to go, and Moritz mirrors him like he's been caught in some orbit.

"What should I do, then?" He winces, because that's a weighted question. "About the teleporting, I mean."

And Melchior looks at him, grins like he doesn't notice Moritz stumbling over his simple sentences.

"Learn to want things."

Like it's that easy.

It's not easy, not for Moritz. But he starts with the beginning, with where it started (' _I want to live_ ') and he goes from there. Melchior helps, writes essays about what's happening to them all, compares them to Achilles and Aeneas, shows Moritz what it's like to float instead of hang.

Breathing is never easy. But his lungs feel stronger, now. He lets himself want, lets that fill him up, lets himself know the wonder.


End file.
